Wednesday, February 17, 2016

LIBRARY: Consultant hired to move things forward

At their Feb. 16 meeting, the Bayard Taylor Library Board, under new leadership, hired a "strategic visioning" consultant, Carl Francis, to help them move forward after a year of controversy.
His immediate assignment will be helping the board to figure out what the library should be called. The prior board tried to change the name from the Bayard Taylor Memorial Library to the Kennett Public Library, causing much criticism from the public and hobbling the board's progress toward building a new library.
Board member Jeff Yetter said the "name question" needs to be settled quickly so that the board can, among other things, publish the library's annual report and print up book bags.
Even though the library's 2016 budget shows a $75,000 deficit, the board agreed to pay Mr. Francis a retainer of $17,500, which will go toward his $225 hourly rate.
(In his report to the board, treasurer Bill McLachlan explained that he hopes to make up the deficit by increasing donations, securing grant money, and shifting cash from the library's investment account.)
Tom Swett, the new library board president, said he had previously worked with Mr. Francis, who is CEO and Chief Strategist of Envisian, in projects involving the Stroud Water Research Center and Chester County's open-space referendum. Mr. Francis helped Easttown Library to build a $7 million building almost 10 years ago.
In his presentation to the Board, Mr. Francis said "a lot of my work centers around difficult situations" involving risks and high stakes. He said the current controversy over the name poses "some real challenges" but if properly handled can lead to an enhanced relationship with the community.
He said he plans to explore "where are we as an organization and where we're going" by gathering and analyzing facts and considering possibilities.
For instance, he said, he was surprised when he walked into the library that there was no indication of who Bayard Taylor was. "We should honor Bayard Taylor," he said. "People should have a sense of who he was."
The Board also welcomed two new members: Loren Pearson, school psychologist for the Kennett district, and Brenda Mercomes, a retired college administrator. Loren was appointed to the Board by Newlin Township (her husband is supervisor Rob Pearson). Brenda was appointed by Kennett Square borough council.
Board member Karen Ammon said she attended a meeting of the Pocopson Township supervisors and reported that they are working on finding a resident to name to the Board. Relations between the library and Pocopson have been strained since the Board rejected Pocopson's previous candidates, saying they didn't have the skills the library needed.
The board meeting was the first to be held in the basement conference room at Liberty Place at Center and State Streets rather than at the library. Mr. Swett changed the monthly meeting time from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m. and then changed the location so as not to disrupt library programs.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

BLUEGRASS: An evening with Dry Branch Fire Squad

While anybody who was anybody headed east to Philadelphia on Friday night for Bruce Springsteen's "The River" concert, we headed south to Newark to hear Dry Branch Fire Squad, a venerable bluegrass quartet, as part of the Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music series.
The band's founder, mandolin player Ron Thomason, has a dry sense of humor and an exceptionally easy stage presence. At one point he mentioned that he'd received several requests from the audience -- as well as a request NOT to play a certain song.
He declared himself baffled.
"How do you NOT play a song?" he wondered aloud, claiming he was experiencing "existential angst" at the very prospect.
He told an anecdote about being asked to host a workshop at a music festival. He said he didn't know what a "workshop," was and in fact had become a musician expressly to avoid both parts of the word.
Later in the anecdote he asked the audience what the late folk singer Utah Phillips' real first name was.
"Bruce," replied several in the audience.
"That is a common error," he said.
"Zipper," one man suggested.
Ron cracked up. "That is an uncommon error," he said, his voice shaking with amusement.
Although his stage persona is that of a Virginia redneck with, as he put it, a one-digit genetic code, a family tree that doesn't fork, and only a single helix in his DNA, his skill on the mandolin quickly put the lie to that. The band members (Tom Boyd on banjo and dobro; Jeff Byrd on bass; Adam McIntosh on guitar and mandolin) took turns stepping up to the mike for their instrumental solos, and they created magical vocal harmonies.

TECHNOLOGY: Ready for their close-ups

Much of the post-Super Bowl hoopla has focused on the controversial halftime show, but what struck me most about the whole broadcast was the astonishing improvements that have been made in video technology. The cameras and TVs have gotten so advanced that, from a sideline camera, you could see the expression on the quarterbacks' faces. The picture is so sharp that you could lip-read what the coaches uttered when a call went against them (my mother is a genius at such interpretation). If you really wanted to, you could watch the sweaty players chatting on the sidelines or inhaling oxygen.
The technology was especially noticeable when, for nostalgia purposes, they showed clips from early football games, some in black-and-white and recorded for posterity with what seemed like a single, fixed camera. I remember such broadcasts.
I was also reminded of the changing technology -- and our changing tastes -- while listening to a skit on the radio by Elaine May and Mike Nichols, a comedy duo popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In this sketch Nichols played Kaplan, a frantic fellow who used his last dime to call the operator from a phone booth (remember them?), searching for a phone number. May played the unsympathetic, by-the-book operator who first told him the number was listed in the directory and he should just look it up, then assured him that his dime would be returned, even though he knew gotten stuck in the coin mechanism. There were some funny moments (he was spelling his name for the operator and said, "K, as in knife"), but it went on for eight minutes! Maybe my attention span has gotten shorter or maybe I've internalized today's faster-paced comedy style.

FUNERAL: Goodbye to Mr. Lowe

Last week we went to a funeral for Milton Lowe, who lived at Brandywine Senior Living. Mr. Lowe, who is the father of a friend of ours, served in the Navy in World War II and was a long-time and active member of the Jewish War Veterans. Members of that group held a moving ceremony for him, speaking about his military service, his groundbreaking career in electronics, his 66-year-long love affair with his wife, Phyllis, and his volunteer work as a docent on the Battleship New Jersey (in his honor, the flag that was used to drape his coffin flew over the ship).
One man said that he and Mr. Lowe had worked together on many Jewish War Veterans programs and recalled fondly that they didn't always quite see eye to eye about how things should be run. Knowing how strong-willed and plain-spoken Mr. Lowe was, I could just imagine those fiery clashes.
After the veterans' service, the traditional, ancient Jewish service followed, and Mr. Lowe's two children and his son-in-law spoke about their father. I have no words to describe what an amazing, beautiful, and funny job they did.
At the cemetery, the Jewish veterans, some of them quite elderly and frail, stood at attention in the cold to pay their respects. One determined woman, using a cane to get around, painstakingly maneuvered through the mud and placed a ceremonial shovelful of dirt on his coffin.
Two seaman in blue uniforms folded the flag with their quick, precise, practiced movements and presented it to the widow with those formal words of sympathy and respect prescribed by the military. "Taps" closed the funeral.
It was a dignified and beautiful service, full of honor, love and patriotism. Another member of the Greatest Generation has left us.

JUSTICE: A footnote to constitional law

The two-volume Constitutional Law book I'm been editing has, much to my surprise, been fascinating. (Several lawyer friends have said "Con Law" was by far their favorite class in law school.)
A recent section about the death penalty mentioned the case of Troy Leon Gregg, a convicted double murderer who broke out of Georgia State Prison the night before his scheduled execution in 1980, and then was promptly beaten to death in a bar fight by two of his fellow escapees.
Gregg's death sentence was the first one upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court after the justices, in Furman v. Georgia, decided that the death penalty was unconstitutional as currently applied.
According to Wikipedia, Gregg and three fellow inmates, "dressed in homemade correctional officer uniforms, complete with fake badges, had sawed through their cells' bars and then left in a car parked in the visitors' parking lot by an aunt of one of them. Gregg was beaten to death later that night in a bar fight in North Carolina. The other escapees were captured three days later."

CHALFANT: A new life for a grand mansion

Here's some great news: the 1884 Chalfant House at 220 North Union Street in Kennett Square, boarded up and vacant since it was heavily damaged by fire in November 2014, is being rehabbed. I'm told that the owner plans to have her real-estate office on the ground floor, with apartments above.
Known for its imposing "upside-down chimneys," the house was designed by noted Philadelphia architect Frank Furness and built for Kennett businessman William Chalfant. In addition to repairing the fire damage, the workers have torn down the garage behind the house and will also raze the frame addition at the rear. (Local historian Lynn Sinclair told me that the frame structure was added by Chalfant's widow, Sarah, in 1913. It contained "an extra bathroom and other conveniences," according to a contemporary newspaper item.)
In their book "Greetings from Kennett Square," Joe Lordi and Dolores Rowe described the Queen Anne-style house is "magnificent" and wrote that the top-heavy chimneys "are thought to resemble early locomotive smoke stacks."
The house, once a funeral home, was an important work by Furness, who also designed the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on North Broad Street in Philadelphia, the old library at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wilmington train station.

UNION STREET: The white line is there for a reason

Saturday afternoon I was heading south on Union Street in Kennett, in front of Tom Macaluso's bookstore, waiting at the light to turn green so I could make a left onto Cypress Street. The driver in front of me had pulled out way beyond the white line, forcing cars turning onto Union Street to make a wide, awkward turn. The outraged glares of the inconvenienced drivers directed at the inept motorist made for some entertaining viewing.
That line is actually there for a reason, but I'm thinking the motorist was from out of town and didn't realize that: after the light changed, he thought about turning into a few streets, turned on his blinker each time -- and then promptly pulled into a dead-end alley.

HOOD'S: A warm dinner on a cold night

We had a terrific dinner at Hood's BBQ in Unionville on Saturday night. I don't often eat beef, so it has to be really good when I do. The sirloin steak (their special for the evening) met that standard, and more. So delicious!
Annalie Korengel Lorgus, pastor at Unionville Presbyterian Church and a Hood's regular, was eating at the table next to us. As she was leaving we asked her if she'd had a good dinner.
"A Hoodie," she replied. "The perfect food."